HallowScream
HallowScream is a 2019 horror black comedy film written and directed by Zachary Byrum, and co-written by Brad Schulz, Tony Wilson, Grant Yaffee, and Kevin Stewart. It was followed by a 2020 sequel titled HallowScream 2, the $112,248 budget of which was raised on through Kickstarter campaign. HallowScream is also the predecessor of another low-budget film, ThanksKilling. Plot The film opens in 1966 with serial killer, Joe Cold, being arrested and sentenced to death in the electric chair on Halloween night. Before his execution, Joe vows vengeance against the town of Salem Massachusetts for his capture. Meanwhile, Joe's grandmother, a witch, lays a hairless, ragged dead cat she created on an alter in the basement and puts a spell on it; The spell has to have the person use their own blood to resurrect the feline corpse and say the words written in her spellbook: White is the color of bone and ash, to speak to the dead we bathe and fast. Red is the color of blood and death, we rub the bones and give them breath. Black is the color of womb and tomb, we sit in the dark to leave the room. 51 years later in 2017, five college students (good girl Jessica, jock Brian, ditzy Kathleen, redneck Bobby, and nerdy Stuart) head home for Halloween with their families. After Jessica calls her father, the collage professor, they make it to their home, get dressed in their Halloween costumes, and head out to go trick or treating. As they stop by the witch's cottage (now abandoned and is made as a museum), they go in and check the place out, and Bobby goes down the basement and calls the rest down to check out the latest specimen. Brian accidently cuts himself and bleeds out on the dead creature as Bobby reads out the words in the witch's spellbook, releasing Joe Cold's vengeful spirit prematurely (now in the dead creature's body). Joe escapes, and the gang conjures up a plan to stop him before he goes back to take innocent lives and ruin Halloween. Joe slits a man's throat and hijacks his car, afterwards the friends track down Joe at an apartment where he kills his partner-in-crime, Henry Bradshaw, with an axe for letting him get arrested years back when he was alive. Joe chases the students, but they escape, and rejoins their families with the exception of Kathleen, who is having sex with her boyfriend, Tony, at a sleazy hotel. Joe walks in on the two and throws a bottle at the mirrored ceiling, killing the two lovers with falling shards of glass. Joe then reacts to their gruesome death with, "Sometimes I scare myself". A hotel janitor finds the corpses of the lovers, and is instantly killed by Joe, who pushes him out the window. The students find a police officer who doesn't believe them, until he sees the car Joe hijacked speeding down the road and pursues it. After trying to pull him over for speeding and seemingly trying to run down a young girl while trick or treating, the officer gets into a shootout with Joe and gets shot in the head. The gang plans to split up and try to confront Joe, but Bobby runs into Joe and runs into the woods and calls for help. Bobby then gets himself knocked out by running into a tree, and gets mutilated by Joe. Brian, Stuart and Jessica goes back inside the cottage and finds anything to kill Joe, and finds nothing. But Brian reads through the spellbook and finds a way to end Joe's Halloween death spree; they have to aim at the heart, and nothing else, which is locked away inside a black box. The cottage door swings open and Bobby's corpse drops dead on the floor, revealing it to be Joe, who crawls on the walls and drops to the three. They try to fight him off, but he's too quick for them. Eventually, Brian grabs Joe and stabs him in the chest. But eventually, Joe states that he's a "Heartless wretch", possesses Brian and attacks Stuart and Jessica. He chases the two to the basement and he finally finds the black box containing Joe's still beating heart. Stuart stabs it with a nearby dagger and as Joe dies, he says "Well fuck me sideways..." After Joe's death, Brian comes to and Jessica checks on him. The three students go to Stuart's house and eat some Halloween candy, but finds out that there is razor blades in the Carmel apples. Turns out that Joe himself had left them a little present while they were out looking for him. As we hear the painful screams of the students, it pans out to the shot of Stuarts house as Joe's voice says "Happy Halloween". Cast Landry Bender as Kathleen Manson Maddie Zeigler as Jessica Kurt Dakota Goyo as Brian Dakota Aaron Carlson as Bobby Thompson Ryan Francis as Stuart Matthews General Bastard as Henry Bradshaw Anthony Mackie as Officer Smith (Cameo) Connor Horsecroft as Joe Cold / The voice of Joe Cold's Ghost Category:Horror-Comedy films Category:Supernatural horror films Category:2019 Films Category:Connor Horsecroft